


These Past Few Days I've Been Afraid I Might Drift Away

by likecrackingwater (1thetenfootlongscarf2)



Series: The Albums [4]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-15 09:12:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5780068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1thetenfootlongscarf2/pseuds/likecrackingwater
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They've withered, now they've gone</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Past Few Days I've Been Afraid I Might Drift Away

Everything is so green and new. The sounds come rolling out of the forest. The radio next to her hand was silent. The small red light showed it was on but there was no noise from it. Just the sound, the whisper of the wind through the trees. Her brace was oiled in the mornings. She could still smell it on her hands.

Kev - Wick - he would carefully collect and distill it from who knows where. She kept it in a small clear jar. It was glass, cut into fractals. One of the younger Arkers had given it to her. When it was empty it acted like a prism and threw rainbows on the walls.

This far the trees muffled the weight. It was a tight knot in the top of her back. Sometimes she would feel her neck seize and her face contort.  _Stress,_ she was told. As if that was something she could fix. As if that was something she could avoid.  _Stress_. 

She used her cane to poke at the branches above her. For a moment she was able to stand without it then her back spasmed.

Her whole life she wanted to fix things. She wanted to balance on the outside of Ark and look over the back of it to the depths of space. When she was younger she would tell her parents that she wanted to leave. Not for Earth - she had seen enough of it. She wanted to go out. 

"There's a whole lot of metal in the Belt," she would tell them. She had it all planned out. She would mine one and get enough ore to make a ship. Then she would burn towards the sun and slingshot around it. Use the gravity to launch herself to Europa or even further... Past Pluto, following Voyager's path and its message of peace. 

Her parents had been as supportive as they could have been. Her mother pooled energy rations and they watched  _First Contact_. It was her first taste of things from Earth being made for those beyond it.

"Are there really aliens?" 

"Maybe." Her mother then revealed another surprise. They each got five pieces of popcorn with a dab of sugar. She remembered how it splinted into soft sweetness on her tongue and the bald captain said  _And he piled upon the whale's white hump, the sum of all the rage and hate felt by his whole race. If his chest had been a cannon, he would have shot his heart upon it._

"That's from  _Moby Dick;_ " her dad laughed, " _or The Whale_. Not from your beloved captain." 

She horded her rations and watched the film twice more before she found the rest. While she studied she would doodle on the edges of her pages names and numbers. When she was assigned for eternal repairs her callsign was NCC1701. Her first (official) day out was important. What she said would be forever recorded on the logs. If the later generations went to Earth everything would have to be kept  - for history. Or so they were told. So she cleared her throat and declared, "Space is not the final frontier. The final frontier is the human soul. Space is where we'll meet the challenge." That night her father chocked on his water when he read it. 

Now she looked up and there was a whole atmosphere between her and where she wanted to be. The Ark had to come down. She knew it. There was no choice. Sometimes she wished she was still up there. If she had to be left alone, like Jaha, she would have turned the burners around and gone into the cold darkness. They had already had Earth. She didn't want it. When she sank to the ground it wet the seat of her pants. She carefully lifted her right hand, her middle and ring fingers apart and dropped the thumb, palm forward. 

Live long and prosper. 

 She could try. 


End file.
